A marathon sprint between terminals

On your mark.

I knelt, low to the ground, a spitting image of Usain Bolt in his prime.

Get set.

A droplet of sweat rolled down my temple and chins. My grip tightened around a carry-on roller suitcase and a packed camera bag, full of massive lenses, books, and extra underwear.

Go!

The airplane door gasped open and Wife hit Mach speed, her turquoise bookbag full of snacks, a coat, and a neck pillow bouncing in the distance as we rushed through Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

Every plane-stiff traveler who’s ever beat feet across a major airport knows the three stages of this sprint.

First, it’s fun and games.

You smile past the first few gates, giggling at your own bad luck before the lungs start atrophying.

I fell victim to the chuckles, as the roller carry-on did everything in its power not to do the one thing it was built for: roll.

I lifted it, clutching it against my chest, my camera bag continuously rebounding against my back and pulling my shirt up until I looked like a Jenny Craig “Before” photo for the Britney Spears “... Baby One More Time” video.

Next, reality starts to crash in.

You’ve passed more than 10 gates. Your heart, a baby xenomorph from “Alien” practicing for a high school drumline, reverberates through your ribcage.

Still not even halfway to the next plane that was supposed to shut its doors before you even exited the last one.

In this stage, a fellow passenger trotted up beside me, matching my pace.

“Where are you headed?” he asked conversationally, obviously not aware we were both sprinting and that I had forty extra pounds of baggage.

I grunted my gate number between side stitches.

“Wow, that’s much further than I have to go!” He peeled away to stop at a gate in the same terminal while another passenger zipped past, the embodiment of a Flash comic book cover.

Finally, you’re in the home stretch.

No more giggles. Legs are Jell-O.

Soon-to-be passengers must have been able to read my reddened face like a neon, “XXX” sign.

“You can do it!” screamed a woman from one gate.

“Go! Go! Go!” yelled another man.

Pillars blurred beside me, tunnel vision settling in. I could see the gate ahead. The blue bookbag was stopped, then on the bridge, then gone.

At about 6 a.m. earlier that morning, I had watched an American Airlines worker argue with a family of six until her associate closed the door in their faces.

She immediately changed her tune from snappy and argumentative to bureaucratic: “The door has been closed. You’ll have to book another flight. Available times are …”

We were supposed to meet Wife’s two brothers and sister-in-law on this flight, and I did not want to relive the horrors of that family of six.

As I shifted down into first and presented my boarding pass to the attendants, they comforted me like they’d just talked me off the side of a bridge.

“You’re fine. You’re here. You made it.”

I nodded at them stupidly, unable to gather enough breath to thank them, and climbed on the plane.

I smiled at Wife’s family as I passed their seats, breathing erratically through my teeth and absolutely certain my heart would explode in my chest and squirt blood out of my ears.

Once in my row, life was good and I was relieved we’d barely scraped onto the plane in time.

Only we hadn’t.

Nearly 30 minutes later, a flight attendant walked a pair of unaccompanied minors onto the aircraft.

I recognized them from our initial flight from Charlotte to Chicago, the one I had fled in such a frenzy upon arrival.

Then, the door closed.

As I considered the best methods for applying a defibrillator to myself in an airplane seat, the flight attendants began demonstrating how one successfully buckles a seatbelt and blows up a life vest.

“Remember to secure your oxygen mask before helping others,” they said.

I could use a hit of that, I thought, before opening “A Confederacy of Dunces” and withering away to a mound of skin and heart palpitations in the seats next to the restroom.